Quotes from Epictetus

But until he succeeds in suppressing his lust and anxiety, how is he really free?

Never say about anything, "I have lost it," but instead, "I have given it back.

If you are told that such an one speaks ill of you, make no defence against what was said, but answer, He surely knew not my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these only!

Some things are up to us and some are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions—in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing. The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered, and unimpeded; the things that are not up to us are weak, enslaved, hindered, not our own.

Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.

To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God.

I was born to fly wherever I like, to live in the open air, to sing whenever I want. You take all this away from me and then say, "What's wrong with you?

Whenever misfortune befalls you, ask yourself how you would react if it were someone else in the same situation.

Apropos of which, Diogenes says somewhere that one way to guarantee freedom is to be ready to die.

If you are praised by others, be skeptical of yourself.

I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived – and dying I will tend to later.

When the soul cries out, it is a sign that we have arrived at a necessary, mature stage of self-reflection. The secret is not to get stuck there dithering or wringing your hands, but to move forward by resolving to heal yourself.

No seas cobarde y evasivo.

If you intend to improve, throw away such thoughts as these: if I neglect my affairs, I shall not have the means of living: unless I chastise my slave, he will be bad. For it is better to die of hunger and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in abundance with perturbation; and it is better for your slave to be bad than for you to be unhappy.

If a person had handed over your body to a stranger, you would certainly be angry. So why do you not feel any shame in handing over your own mind to any criticiser, to be unsettled and annoyed.

I will throw you into prison. Correction – it is my body you will throw there.

Who exactly are these people that you want to be admired by? Aren't they the same people you are in the habit of calling crazy? And is this your life ambition, then – to win the approval of lunatics

If then you desire (aim at) such great things, remember that you must not (attempt to) lay hold of them with a small effort; but you must leave alone some things entirely, and postpone others for the present.

For you will learn by experience that it's true: the things that men admire and work so hard to get prove useless to them once they're theirs.

practice saying to every harsh appearance,1 You are an appearance, and in no manner what you appear to be.

there is but one way to freedom - to despise what is not in our power.

For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.

Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is an accident of mortality." But if anyone's own child happens to die, it is immediately, "Alas! how wretched am I!" It should be always remembered how we are affected on hearing the same thing concerning others.

We don't need the victim's entrails for their own sake, only for the sake of the signs they convey. And we don't worship the crow or the raven -- we worship God who communicates by means of them.